Taming the Nafs: Approaching Islamic notions of the Self in Cross-Cultural Psychiatry

This talk throws light on Islamic debates on the ruh (spirit) and nafs (self) and asks how Islamic discourses provide a unique vantage point to address questions of ethical transformations and psychic unity, without having to rely on concepts of western psychiatric and psychoanalytic thought. The talk brings into conversation my ethnographic work with healers in Pakistan with discussions of the soul (nafs) among Islamic physicians and theologians to ask how Islamic concepts provide the opportunity to radically alter the way we look at and approach the problem of  “psychosis” through frameworks of normality and pathology.